OBJECTIVETo investigate the clinical efficacy of superior mesenteric artery (SMA)-oriented laparoscopic complete mesocolic excision (CME) with a medial-to-lateral approach in the treatment of right colonic cancer.

METHODSA total of 166 patients with right colonic cancer who were admitted to The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University from January 2015 to December 2016 underwent SMA-oriented laparoscopic CME by the same surgical team. Clinical data of these patients were retrospectively analyzed.

RESULTSAll the 166 cases were enrolled in this study, including 96 male and 70 female patients. Right colon adenocarcinoma was diagnosed by preoperative colonoscopy, enhanced computerized tomography(CT) and pathological examination, and the tumor was resectable. There were no emergency surgery patients for bowel obstruction or perforation, no patients with multiple primary cancers, and no stage IIII( patients with liver or lung metastasis. All the patients underwent SMA-oriented laparoscopic CME successfully, without conversion to laparotomy. No ureteral injury, duodenal injury, and superior mesenteric vein injury occurred during the operation. R0 resections were performed in all the cases. The average operation time was (102.4±28.3) min, blood loss was (67.2±26.3) ml, number of lymph nodes retrieved was 20.5±7.6, postoperative anal exhaust time was (2.1±1.1) d, postoperative hospital stay was (7.9±1.4) d. There was no perioperative death or anastomotic leakage. Two patients with small bowel obstruction were readmitted within 30 days after operation. The postoperative complications occurred in 15.1%(25/166) of the patients, including wound infection (2 cases), chylous fistula (20 cases), anastomotic bleeding (1 case), small bowel obstruction (2 cases). A total of 161 patients (97.0%) were followed up for 1 to 24 months, and 10 patients had distant metastasis during the follow-up period. The 2-year overall survival (OS) rate was 96.4%.

CONCLUSIONSuperior mesenteric artery-oriented laparoscopic complete mesocolic excision with a medial-to-lateral approach for right colonic cancer has good short-term efficacy.